I’m back with another Lazo Jumpsuit hack to share this week! We already looked at turning Lazo into a cute wrap dress, but what about turning the bodice into a vest? It already has a button front so this hack is really easy peasy. You are going to love it!
In addition to making this cool vest hack, I decided to embellish the vest with a sun detail on the back. This was appliqued on and then free motion quilted. I am obsessed with how it turned out! I will explain in more detail about the sun part of this project later in this post.
How to sew the Lazo Vest
All you need for this hack is the bodice front, bodice back, armscye and neck binding pieces, and the front facing. You can set the pants, pocket, and drawstring pieces aside. I used washed linen from Blackbird Fabrics for my vest and I lined it with a cotton/linen blend.
We need to shorten the front facing to match the length of the front bodice. Line up the front facing and bodice and cut the facing to match.
I lined my vest so that it would have extra weight and so that my quilted back panel stitching would be hidden on the inside. The lining is optional but if you are using a lighter fabric it can help add some structure and weight. I did a simple underlining method: I cut my front and back bodice out of the lining material and then sewed the darts, side seams and shoulder seams. I then put the lining and assembled outer vest together with wrong sides facing and treated them as one fabric moving forward. You can even baste the lining and outer fabric together along the armscyes and neck to make things easier to handle.
Assemble the bodice as indicated in the instructions. Sew steps 1-12, then skip to steps 28-31, and then steps 33-24. Your front facing will not extend down onto the pants because there aren’t any! So just ignore all reference to the pants and the angled bottom of the facing.
To finish your vest, simply turn the hem up ½” (1.3 cm) two times and press. Edgestitch in place or do a blind hem stitch. If you prefer to do a more substantial hem, you could draft and add a 1-2” (2.5 - 5 cm) hem facing. You can then decide where you want your buttons and buttonholes and finish up your vest!
This vest works open or closed and it has enough coverage to work as a top all on its own! I love how versatile it is. I paired my Lazo vest with our Winslow Culottes wrap pants and my Lockhart Top hack. Both of these garments are favourites of mine and get a ton of wear!
The Sun Applique
I’m not an applique expert so this project was an experiment for me, but I’ll share how I approached it. I started by interfacing the entire back bodice. You want extra stability for appliqueing so that things lie flat and stay neat.
I interfaced the orange sun fabric as well. I cut out my sun pieces. This is a raw edge applique, so I did not need to press under any edges or do any further prep.
I pinned my sun in place on the back bodice and I stitched all around the edges of each piece using a very short zig-zag stitch (a satin stitch). It’s not perfect by any means, I had trouble turning around the sharp points of the sun but I managed to get it looking decent and you really can’t tell from a distance. You want your stitches to cover the edge of the fabric and secure it thoroughly.
Once the sun pieces were all stitched down, I free motion quilted them to add texture and more stability. I am new to free motion quilting so I went with a matching thread colour and just played around with some circles on the middle part and lines on the sun points. Here is a picture of the back of the bodice before I lined it so you can see the stitching more clearly.
I love how textured the sun is! I washed the vest to really bring out all this gorgeous texture. The vest is made out of linen so it also will have a lovely texture as it ages. I placed the sun lower down on the back of the vest because I didn't want my hair to cover it up completely! In hindsight, I think I should have put it a smidge higher, it is a little low for my liking. Oh well, live and learn!
I LOVE this vest! It was a fun and challenging project with the appliqued detail, but it turned out so cool and I love wearing it. You could do any design that speaks to you for the back, or simply make the Lazo vest hack out of gorgeous fabric and be done with it! I do think I will make more in the future.
